Western Digital Media Player Review

About a month ago, I purchased a USB player from Western Digital which is a small device that you can attach to your LCD / Plasma TV via HDMI with my sole purpose is to play HD content such as movies.

Western Digital, more commonly known as a maker of hard disks for PCs, have 3 models which you can choose from:
WD TV Mini, WD TV HD and WD TV Live

The reason I chose WD TV HD over the rest of the models is because it supports the .mkv format which is commonly used for HD content.

However, if you would like to play .rmvb files (Real Media format), only the WD TV mini supports it. However, that model does not support HDMI.
WD TV Live supports wireless/youtube capability which I do not really need.

Note that all the packages above do not include a HDMI cable. So you would have to purchase one for yourself if you do not have one available. Although the player does provide and support "legacy" composite audio and video cables for older TV sets.

Installation is simple. After attaching the appropriate plug for your country, plug it in and insert the power supply cable into the player.
Next, connect the HDMI cable (or composite audio video cables) to your TV and you are ready to go.

The player has two USB connections which are located at the side and back of the player.
According to Western Digital, the player can support both USB connections at the same time.
However, this feature has not been tested yet.

Although the player does support both USB hard drives and USB Flash drives,
I highly recommended to load the content into the USB flash drive and play it from there as hard disks are very fragile. In addition, there is a warning on the unit which indicates that the hard drive should not be placed on top of the player due to overheating issues. Due to this, Western Digital was kind enough to include a stand for your portable hard drive.

The detection rate using my Imation 8GB took less than 10 seconds to display its contents. Using the supplied remote control, navigation of the menus are easy. Pressing up and down selects the various media types that it supports (Video, Pictures, Music). The player also supports subtitles in various formats.

I have also discovered that some mkv files that only have DTS as its sound source will have no audio during playback unless you have another connection to a DTS decoder. A cheaper alternative is to convert the DTS audio to AC3 audio. Here is a simple guide that is proven to work.
http://audioconverter.heartware.dk/Tutorial/

Overall, at RM365, I am completely satisfied with its performance and capabilities to play HD content.

Pros: HDMI support, Simultaneous 2 USB drive support, small, light and compact
Cons:  Does not support rmvb and DTS audio, no HDMI cable supplied

Summary:
Media Formats supported:
Video:
AVI (Xvid,AVC, MPEG1/2/4),
MPG,
MPEG,
VOB,
MKV(h.264.x.264, AVC, MPEG1/2/4, VC-1)
TS/TP/M2T (MPEG1/2/4, AVC, VC-1)
MP4/MOV (MPEG4, h.264),
M2TS,
WMV9

Photo: JPEG, GIF, TIFF, BMP, PNG
Music: MP3, WAV/PCM/LOPCM, WMA, AAC, FLAC, MKA, AIF.AIFF, OGG, Dolby Digital, DTS
Playlist: PLS, M3U, WPL
Subtitle: SRT, ASS, SSA, SUB, SMI